CRUDE RUBBER

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 88, 5 July 1927, Page 13

CRUDE RUBBER

ROMANCE OF BUSINESS BRITISH HAVE CONTROL To-day, 95 per cent, of the world’s consumption of rubber comes from the Middle East, from Sumatra, Java, Malaya, Ceylon, India and Cochin China. This has not always been the case. The store of the transfer of this vast industry from South America half way around the world, is one of the most interesting romances of business, says a writer in “Goodyear News.” Rubber comes from a milky substance called latex, that flows from the bark of rubber (lievea) trees, which grow in what is called the rubber belt, extending about 10 degrees north and south of the equator. Trees are tapped by cutting a small strip from the bark, and the latex which flows out is collected in buckets. It is coagulated (something like the curd separates from the whey as milk turns sour), and this curdlike substance is lifted off, run through rollers, and comes out in sheets of pure rubber. It is then dried and is ready for shipment. The natives of South America and of Africa, who were first to gather rubber for the market, poured this liquid over a stick turned slowly over a fire, gradually forming a ball of rubber, in which shape the primitive product originally came to market.

Outside the Congo, South America was the great rubber producing area of the world until about 20 years ago. At that time 90 per cent, of the world’s rubber came from Brazil.

Within five years the rubber producing industry was moved almost bodily to the Far East, and to-day, and for a number of years, the East has furnished the great bulk of the world’s needs in rubber, the balance being wild rubber, mostly from Brazil and Africa.

The explanation is that a farsighted Englishman, Sir Henry Wicham, had shipped some rubber tree seeds out of Brazil in the year of 1876, set them out in Kew Gardens, London, and shipped the young shoots to Ceylon.

To-day the British control about 58 per cent, of the world’s acreage of plantation rubber, the Dutch about 15 per cent., the rest being divided between native, French, Japanese and American owners. Two American rubber companies own plantations, Goodyear and one other. There are 4,300,000 acres set out in rubber in the Middle East, representing a total investment of £170,000,000.

DONT’S FOR MOTORISTS THE FINAL WORD “Don’ts for motorists” are one of the most numerous things in the woild. A large national industrial association recently asked Mr. H. M. Jewett to contribute for a safety campaign pamphlet ; ‘a list of a dozen or mere things a motorist should keep in mind,” suggesting that “a line of don’ts” would be most effective. Here is Jewett’s reply: There would be no use of my writing you a list of “a dozen things a motorist should keep in mind” —for the kind of motorist who can keep his mind -or. more than one thing at a time is not the kind that causes accidents. There is just one “donU that, if generally observed, would preven*: most of the automobile accidents: Don’t do anything suddenly. Apply that to starting. stopping, backing, changing direction, turning, crossing railroads, entering stree* intersections, etc., and the causes of the accidents are eliminated.